


Skeletons Dancing (in the closet)

by runobody2



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Relationship Study, grimdark bruce ridiculousness, mild violence, psychogeography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runobody2/pseuds/runobody2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce/Joker relationship/character study.</p>
<p>"There’s an oldness to his skin, like it doesn’t quite fit, and he can’t remember the last time it did. But there’s a bittersweetness in his bleached bones, an all-encompassing coldness that’s the city, that’s his heart, and his enemy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skeletons Dancing (in the closet)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> A gift for jay :).  
> She asked for Joker/Bruce codependence hijinks, which is not how I normally like to read them at all, (especially considering my knowledge of comic canon?) but it was nonetheless a great writing exercise. Takes place in weird canon limbo with an apparently? missing? batfam. (basically the grimdark bruce ridiculousness au).  
> If you read Bruce as a classist prick who's characterization grows more and more malevolent throughout the fic and who is probably doing more harm than good, you're probably right. It's totally intentional.  
> hm... what else?  
> There's some self-indulgent Gotham imagery in there, because that city be awesome.

An unlikely pair, it’s true, but it’s an unlikely city, an unlikely world, an unlikely time.  Theirs is a story of infinity to one odds, of shades of gray and black and chalk white caught in an endless battle, of a desolate, glittering city known as “Gotham” that decks itself in broken dreams and the blood that falls like first frost to coat her eyelashes and adorn her breast, a city that is their playground some nights, when she feels either especially kind or especially cruel.

An orphaned heir to billions and the son of a factory worker- an unlikely pair-  but insanity has an odd way of bringing people together.

A thousand gilded tongues have said that it is the rarest most precious thing in the world to find one’s soulmate.  But is it not an equally precious, wonderful thing to find one’s archenemy?

* * *

It’s funny, he can taste the blood in the air tonight, shining from underneath all those layers of grime that he revels in. It’s a second sense, a tickling in the back of his throat,funny, like a cloak that drapes itself across it’s owner’s back and strangles him.  Batsy may think he guards this city, but he knows that there isn’t a city left here to guard, nothing but a joke with a punchline that screams bloody murder (heh heh, murder- now there’s a joke he can learn to appreciate- now, why are you staring?).  And that- that- Bats can think to save this wonderful, wonderful, godforsaken place- that isn’t funny.  It’s nothing short of hilarious.

The Joker licks his lips and smiles.

* * *

 Bruce Wayne closes his eyes and the Batman opens them. The night is deep as he he sets out to save her. (He’s just a man though, a man with a little bit of darkness and much too large a heart.) But tonight he fights to save the soul of Gotham, even if she doesn’t want to be saved. He’ll drag her kicking and screaming over the finish line. At least, he’ll damn well try.

* * *

Let me tell you a story.  It begins with “Once upon a time.”

Once upon a time there was a boy.  He had parents that loved him and he lived in a mansion and his name was Bruce but his dad called him “chum.”  And his mother- his mother was as beautiful and perfect as the pearls around her neck.  Once upon a time he watched his parents murdered for those very same pearls, gunned down in front of him as he watched with wide eyes.  And that moment he felt greed and fear and pain and hate.  The fates spun out a story that began with “Once upon a time” and ended in “death,” and he heard them.  But that’s not where his tale ends, because now he’s a man grown and night times he chills the hearts of others because he still remembers.  He’s crafted a new story for himself, and sometimes he’s not sure if it ends in “justice” or “vengeance.”

* * *

"Bats!" the Joker says.  "I'm so glad you came.  It was getting a little boring here without you."

Batman ignores him, focuses on knocking out the last few henchmen and figuring out whatever sort of nonsense the Joker has planned -the dangerous kind, of course- except when it’s not.  There are hostages in the corner, intermittently giggling in a way that signifies some new sort of Joker Toxin.  “Let them go, Joker, this isn’t a joke,” Batman growls. The Joker only laughs.

“But, it’s always a joke, Batsy, it’s always so funny when it hurts.”  A white blur dodges the offending batarang.  “Aw, Bats, how offensive. I was just about to make a proposition- you, me a night on the town- what do you say?”

* * *

 Once upon a time, the man fell into a vat of acid.

It was most definitely the low point in his life, but he’s someone else now, entirely. Rebirth, indeed.

The last thing the old him remembers is thinking that Batman will save him. He was wrong. Batman doesn’t save anyone, not really.

* * *

 There’s blood and grime on his gloves, and he clenches and unclenches them because he craves that sticky-sweet feeling, and he’s a little bit afraid and a little bit numb but most of all he wants the feeling of scum beneath his boots, because he’s stared into the pit of Gotham’s underbelly, of those who are born and live and die in desperation and squalor, and sometimes he just wants to reach in and squeeze, and convince himself that he who fights monsters isn’t one himself.

* * *

 The Joker laughs, because that’s what he does.  They all think he’s the prince of this place, when he’s not, he’s just an aftereffect, but oh what an aftereffect. There was a day he slipped, and the city was waiting, waiting to swallow him and chew and spit him out again, the ugly testament to it’s sins. No, he’s not a cause at all, just a result, but they always said it was a cycle, a downwards spiral.  And the Joker, he knows about those, even if he prefers to go for pushing others off the stairs entirely.

* * *

 The sun sets on the smoggy Gotham miasma and the world is orange-red for a moment before the glittering buildings punctuate the night like cinders.  Man’s folly is to light a fire and then light ten more to brighten the smoke of the first.  (The city’s always run on the prideful side.)

On the rooftops, owls and bats and little robins sing.

In the distance, or maybe somewhere in your head, a clown is laughing.

* * *

 “But you save me,” the Joker says, and he smiles his ruby-lipped smile.  “You could kill me, but you don’t.  You turn me in, when you know I’ll break out.  And these people here tonight- you killed them.  You killed them to save me.”

Batman loosens his hand, blinks, and when he looks back, the Joker is gone.

* * *

 Sometimes he just wants to shake the people on the street, and yell at them until they see things the way he does, until they see that the world is a rotten rat race, until they see all those stupid horrible things that they’ve been hiding all their lives from, all the stupid horrible things that happen to them, and their friends and loves and enemies, he wants to trace a knife across their skin until they understand, until they realize. The truth isn’t that bad, really, it’s not bad at all, because after you’ve accepted that failure is your only option, everything suddenly clears up- and it’s not losing, so much as it’s finding a new way to win, and his skin crawls because they don’t get it at all.

He settles for dropping another sort of -heh- bomb on them instead.

* * *

 He’s cut of the city’s cloth, through and through. He’s a piece on the board, maybe even the king, but in the deep recesses of his mind, he doesn’t pretend for a moment that he’s ever the one playing the game.

No, he’s a soldier, in this never-ending war where there are no sides and no colors, only gray- gray- grayer, only enemies and those who aren’t enemies (yet) and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. He has taken, and he’s taken from, and he thinks he’s seen a little of the truth.He thinks the universe gets a little ironic kick out of him, sometimes.

* * *

 There’s an oldness to his skin, like it doesn’t quite fit, and he can’t remember the last time it did. But there’s a bittersweetness in his bleached bones, an all-encompassing coldness that’s the city, that’s his heart, and his enemy.

Another man fight want to see this place in flames, but he knows fire; too-bright today, burns out by tomorrow, and that’s never been his sort of style- he’s always wanted something that endures, anyways.

But the cold of the city and his burden on his chest, and the violence in his hands that’s maybe a little bit misplaced, and the sound of laughter echoing while his favorite enemy waits- that’s the sort of thing that lasts.

* * *

 His pulse is gone, and Batman panics for a moment, because this isn’t supposed to happen, the Joker isn’t supposed to be dead in front of him, but it only lasts for a moment because he knows how this game goes, he knows that the Joker won’t stay dead because that’s not how it works, the Joker always comes back and the joke is always on you.

He breathes deep, presses his hands to the Joker’s chest and pushes, and he breaks a few bones, but if that what it takes, he’s willing. It’s second nature now, and he counts to thirty almost subconsciously. Thirty compressions, two breaths.

There’s a peculiar taste on the Joker’s lips that Batman has come to associate with dynamite. There was an explosion, he remembers now. The tang must be nitroglycerin. He can smell the smoke, too, acrid on his too-dry tongue.

The Joker coughs, begins to breathe. He’ll live to laugh another day. He’d better, because he’s saving more than his own soul in the process.

The Batman might not have had much of a childhood, but he knows what happens when you’re playing tug-of-war and your opponent lets go.

* * *

 Batman drives into the Batcave, begins to strip off an identity and step into another mask. There are leftover promises resounding against the backs of his eyes when he blinks, and Bruce is glad that he doesn’t know who he’s promising to, because some promises can’t help but be broken. As he leaves the Batmobile, he notices the note stuck to his car, and flips it over to reveal shaky handwriting in green ink.  It takes hims a moment to decipher the words.

> we’ll have to dance again sometime -J


End file.
